seen from United Kingdom
seen from Türkiye
seen from China
seen from United Kingdom
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Japan
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Germany
seen from Indonesia
seen from China
seen from Poland
seen from Germany
seen from China
Weekend Writing Warriors
Hello, writerly friends!
Let's have a thing. A little flash or short story event. Use the weekend to write something for the prompt and post it on Sunday. Use the tag #weekendwritingwarriors and mention this blog.
Your prompt for this weekend is:
"We have all we need, let's just go."
A conversation about trust (feat. Beck & Hawthorne)
Based on this week's Weekend Writing Warriors prompt by @the-wip-project
“You didn’t believe me before, what changed?”
@the-wip-project
Title: Give Me The Keys
Rating: G
Paring: Danny Reagan/Linda Reagan
___________________
Linda knows this week has been tough for Danny. He won't- or maybe he can't- tell her about his case. She respects and understands that, she really does. He's come home every day for the last two weeks past midnight. As soon as his arm wraps around her and his head hits the pillow, he's asleep. He looks like he hasn't gotten any sleep when he wakes up the next morning.
It's nine on a Saturday, he's finally home, and she knows what she has to do. He's napping in their bedroom, and she needs to be extremely quiet while gathering all she needs. She steps into the bedroom, sits on her side. "You awake, babe?"
"Barely," Danny answers, turning to her.
"I need to run a few errands. Try to sleep while I'm gone, yeah?"
He nods, "mmkay."
She smiles and presses a kiss to his forehead. "I should be back soon."
*********
"Come on," Linda says while Danny sits at the table, eating cold chicken for a late breakfast.
"What?"
"Come on!" She yanks his arm, encouraging him to stand up and follow her.
He follows her out to the car, "Where are we going? Do we need anything? What about the chicken I didn't get to eat?"
"We have all we need, let's just go." She climbs into the driver's seat, and he into the passenger seat.
"Linda, what are you doing?" He wants to know, buckling his seatbelt.
"Kidnapping you." She answers immediately and matter of factly.
"Babe."
"I'm taking you out of the house, against your will. And I've forced you into this car, against your will. And I'm going to drive, with you buckled in this car, against your will. Pretty sure that constitutes as kidnapping, Detective."
He plays along, "when you're done, I'll probably have to throw the book at you. Kidnapping a police detective and all."
"You should definitely arrest me, make sure I've learned my lesson."
He matches her suggestive smile before asking again, "where are we going?"
*********
"What is this place?" Danny wonders as he rides the elevator with Linda to one of the top floors.
"You'll soon find out," Linda answers, grabbing his hand as the elevator doors open. She leads him to a white door, and he's shocked to see she had a key.
"How on earth do you have a key?"
"Would you just stop being a detective for one minute and just trust your wife?"
He sighs but keeps his mouth shut... until the door opens and he sees linoleum floors, big windows, mirrors reaching to the ceiling, and a picnic basket and blanket set up in the middle of the floor.
"What the hell is this?"
"You remember my friend Elliot, right?"
"Yeah, the fashion designer."
"This is his studio. He's in Paris for the summer, and he gave me the key to use this space when and however I want... with whoever I want. It's not exactly out of the city, and I can't exactly take a hotel on the waterfront, but it's away from the house."
He looks around the room, then back at her, "you did this all for me?"
"No, Danny, I did it all for Tom Selleck," she says evenly. Then, "of course I did it for you! You needed a break after the last two weeks, and what better way than a secluded picnic? We have Mexican street corn salad, grilled chicken wraps, watermelon and strawberries, brownies for dessert, and wine."
"This- Linda, I don't know what to say."
"Ask your wife to join you in a picnic lunch," she says softly, holding out her hand for him to take.
He does so and leads her to sit on the soft picnic blanket. After blessing the food, he asks her, "how long have you had this planned?"
"Truthfully? Seventy two hours." Linda takes a bite of her wrap, "I knew I wanted to do something to get you to relax and forget life for a while. I thought of a bath, but it's a hundred ten, and even I'm not that crazy."
He laughs at her tone and eye roll.
"So I came up with this. I texted Elliot just in case, and he said 'have at it'. So here we are, having at it," she spreads her arms- her wrap still in her hand- and shrugs.
"You're amazing, Linda. I love you so much."
She smiles and blushes, amazed at how easily he can make her flustered. It's like they're in high school again, sweating they're just really good friends. "You've done so much for me, especially those first two years after the accident. I can't possibly thank you or repay you enough for all you've done. And I know this picnic isn't even close to all I want to say and do to you and for you, but it's a start, y'know? And if it takes me the rest of my life to finally show you how incredibly lucky and thankful I am that you chose me to spend the rest of your life with... well, I won't mind so much. Because I love doing this for you, and I love seeing you happy. I love you."
Linda's speech tugs at his heart. "You don't have to repay me, baby. That's not why I did it-"
"I know, and I'm not at all suggesting that. No way. I just- don't know how to thank you properly for everything you do for me."
He grabs her hand and holds it tightly, "by being my wife, and being you. Patient, compassionate, kind, funny, sexy. You can repay and thank me by doing exactly what you've been doing."
"I've just been loving you-"
"Exactly. I don't need big gestures, babe. Just you, and your big blue eyes and toothy grin."
She smiles widely at his sweet words.
"That's the one. I love you, Linda. So much. I can't even possibly begin to tell you or show you how much you mean to me."
"Then I guess we're in the same feelings are too much boat, huh?"
He laughs and leans over to give her a kiss. "Thank you for this. It means a lot to me."
"I love you, Danny."
"I love you more."
"I love you most."
He smiles- he really does have the best wife, doesn’t he?
Male friendship for the Weekend Writing Warriors prompt from @the-wip-project. With Flash Fiction Friday on a break I went full flash fic this time.
(Actually a little over a flash fic. Since it's not officially a flash fiction challenge I didn't bother to cut it under 1000 words.)
The Fill-In Grandkid
“You’re late!”
“I know–”
“This is bad!”
Dylan felt like snapping “Duh!” at that ineloquent, obvious remark, but his dad deserved some sympathy. It was his mother’s funeral.
It was Dylan’s grandmother’s funeral, but he wasn’t sure he deserved much sympathy. He was the reason he was going to be late. He was the one who had stood in front of the mirror for longer than he’d realized, retying his tie, because he was going to be a pallbearer and the other pallbearers were his dad, who always looked sharp in a suit, and his sisters, who always looked put together no matter what they wore. He did not want to be the only pallbearer to look sloppy.
Not that his grandma would have cared how he looked, but he wanted to look good for her anyway.
And therefore, here he was, looking good while sitting in the front seat of his car in the middle of an inexplicable traffic jam.
“I’m stuck in traffic,” he told his dad, with a long glance at his girlfriend in the passenger seat.
She bit her lip in silent sympathy.
“You could have called earlier.”
“How would that have helped?”
There was a long pause and then his dad sighed, a long sigh too. “We might have to start without you,” he said wearily.
“Okay,” said Dylan.
“You can just come in and sit down. Front row.”
“Okay.” There was silence on the other end of the phone. “I’ll be there as soon as I get there,” he promised, and hung up. And then realized that he hadn’t said what he meant– “I’ll be there as soon as I can”– and that “I’ll be there when I get there” was at least as obvious a statement as “This is bad.”
“I’m sorry,” said Rose.
Dylan breathed his own long sigh. “It is what it is. They might be starting without us,” he added, since he wasn’t sure what she’d heard.
“I’m sorry.”
“I just–”
“I know. You’re supposed to be a pallbearer.”
“There really is no one else,” Dylan said miserably, sliding down in his seat. “Dad’s the only one. We’re the only grandkids.”
“Your mom?”
“Maybe.” He doubted it. Mom seemed to have assigned herself the job of being there for Grandpa. If she didn’t step in, would it be lopsided? Or would they have only two, to keep it even, and one of his sisters would be kicked out?
He held onto his phone in case anyone texted him. No one did.
When traffic finally started moving, there was no sign of what had caused it to stop. Dylan thought about pushing the speed limit but the way today was going he’d get pulled over and miss the funeral entirely. When they reached the church he was glad to have Rose’s hand to hold as he walked up to the front, even though he had to let go to get past the casket, which was in the middle of the aisle, to get to the front row.
He took a shaky breath at seeing the casket. Now that he was here and had nothing else to think about, the emotion was setting in.
Partway through the funeral, something fell over his shoulder, and he looked down through blurry eyes to see something white on his lap. He picked it up and turned it over. When his sister, next to him, noticed, she pulled something out of the little purse she was carrying, which was also white. Gloves, he saw now. White gloves. Must be a pallbearer thing, since looking down the row he saw something white poking out of his dad’s pocket.
At least he could finish the job. It was only his dad and his sisters in the row with him, so had they entered lopsided, with just the three of them?
He was standing in the cemetery, his pallbearing duties done, his grandmother buried, looking down the hill toward the reflecting pool and wiping tears from his eyes, when he got the answer.
“Hey,” said Jason, his oldest friend, coming to stand beside him and throw an arm around his shoulders.
“Hi.”
“Hope you didn’t mind. I didn’t think to ask you.”
“Ask me?”
“I thought you heard. I stood in for you.”
“For–” And then he got it.
“I heard they were looking for someone,” Jason explained. “Nobody else was jumping, so I figured– I felt like I was close to her, in a way. She came to all our basketball games. And always bought us a pretzel to split after.”
Dylan smiled and wiped his eyes again.
“And I was on her fridge, right? The last time I saw her I introduced myself– or you started to introduce me, I don’t remember– and before we explained who I was she said I was on her fridge, because she took a picture of us with our trophies that time we won the tournament.”
And Dylan had to laugh because he knew exactly what picture Jason was talking about.
“So–” Jason shrugged a little. “Fake grandkid.” He thumped Dylan’s shoulder. “But I got to turn it over to the real one. Which is how it should be.”
“Thanks,” said Dylan.
“Yeah,” said Jason, and nodded, the way he’d been responding to “thanks” since he was a kid.
“And thanks for being here.”
“Yeah.”
“Hi?” said Rose, standing uncertainly a few feet away.
Dylan waved her closer and told Jason, with another teary smile, “You should meet my girlfriend, since you’re apparently part of the family now.” After he introduced them, he explained, “He was the fill-in pallbearer until we got here.”
“Just paying his grandma back for all the soft pretzels she bought me,” said Jason.
Rose’s eyes lit with an idea. “Maybe we should get soft pretzels later, then. In her honor.” And she looked at Jason when she said it, including him.
Jason flashed Dylan a look that he could read clearly– it said “I like her.”
He had to swallow around a lump in his throat as his eyes strayed to the headstone. He would never get a reaction like that from his grandma, who had never gotten to meet Rose.
Jason must have seen where he was looking, because when Dylan looked back at him, he glanced at the headstone too, narrowed his eyes a little, and nodded.
Dylan could read that look too. And while he was pretty sure his grandma would have liked Rose, it was easier to believe when Jason agreed.
Hello weekend writing warriors!
You know the deal, I give you a prompt, and you write something for it over the weekend and post it on Sunday. This can be a scene, a flash fic, a short story, whatever you like. You don't have to use the exact words, use it as inspiration.
Use the tag #weekendwritingwarriors and mention this blog.
Here's your prompt:
"You didn't believe me before, what changed?"
Better Lenses
A sci-fi flash fiction story.
Based on the Weekend Writing Warriors prompt by @the-wip-project
"We have all we need, let's just go."
Maryn glanced up from where she had laid out her equipment to find Ronha with a standard-issue duffel slung over her shoulder, tapping her foot impatiently. "You have what you need. I'm still checking. Go wait in the shuttle; I'll be right behind you."
Weekend Writing Warriors
Hello writing warriors!
Once again, I give you a prompt and you write something for it over the weekend and post it on Sunday. This can be a scene, a flash fic, a short story, whatever you like. You don't have to use the exact words, use it as inspiration.
Use the tag #weekendwritingwarriors and mention this blog.
Here's your prompt:
“I’ll tell you but you’re not gonna like it.”
Weekend Writing Warriors
Hello writing warriors!
Oh, I forgot to give you a prompt!
Write something for over the weekend and post it on Sunday. This can be a scene, a flash fic, a short story, whatever you like. You don't have to use the exact words, use it as inspiration.
Use the tag #weekendwritingwarriors and mention this blog.
Here's your prompt:
"You're late! This is bad!"
